Ethical Terminology
Keith Burgess-Jackson
8 January 2017
A normative ethical theory is a statement of necessary and sufficient
conditions for moral rightness. Direct Utilitarianism (DU), for
example, says that an act is right if and only if it maximizes net utility.
It follows from DU that:
•
•
If an act maximizes net utility, then it is right. (This says that
the maximization of net utility is sufficient for moral
rightness.)
If an act does not maximize net utility, then it is not right.
(This says that the maximization of net utility is necessary for
moral rightness.)
A synonym for “right” is “permissible,” so we could have said the
following instead:
•
•
If an act maximizes net utility, then it is permissible.
If an act does not maximize net utility, then it is impermissible.
Let us define “wrong” as “not right.” The following three terms,
therefore, are synonymous (meaning that they have the same
meaning):
1. Right.
2. Permissible.
3. Not wrong.
As are these three terms:
4. Not right.
5. Impermissible.
6. Wrong.
So it follows from DU that:
•
•
If an act maximizes net utility, then it is right.
If an act does not maximize net utility, then it is wrong.
1
Since every act either does or does not maximize net utility, every act
is either right or wrong.
Now that we have clarified the relationships between “right,”
permissible,” and “wrong,” let us introduce three new ethical terms. To
say that an act is obligatory1 is to say two things:
1. It is right to perform it; and
2. It is wrong not to perform it.
To say that an act is forbidden2 is to say that:
1. It is wrong to perform it.
To say that an act is discretionary3 is to say two things:
1. It is right to perform it; and
2. It is right not to perform it.
Given these definitions, every act is either obligatory, forbidden, or
discretionary, and no act is more than one of the three. That is to say,
no act is both obligatory and forbidden; no act is both forbidden and
discretionary; and no act is both obligatory and discretionary.
Consider the following flowchart:
Is it right to perform the act?
Yes. Is it right not to perform the act?
Yes. The act is discretionary.
No. The act is obligatory.
No. The act is forbidden.
In logic, the Law of Excluded Middle says that every object, at any
1
Synonyms for “obligatory” are “mandatory,” “compulsory,” “imperative,” and
“required.”
2 Synonyms for “forbidden” (besides “wrong”) are “prohibited,” “banned,”
“verboten,” “disallowed,” “taboo,” and “condemnable” (the last of these being from John
Stuart Mill).
3 Synonyms for “discretionary” are “optional” and “elective.”
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given time, either has or lacks a particular property. For example,
every object, at the present moment, either has or lacks the property
of blueness. (That is to say, every object, currently, is either blue or
not blue.) Since rightness is a property of acts, it follows that every act
is either right or not right. Since we have defined “wrong” as “not
right,” it follows that every act is either right or wrong.
In logic, the Law of Noncontradiction says that no object, at any
given time, both has and lacks a particular property. For example, no
object, at the present moment, both has and lacks the property of
blueness. (That is to say, no object, currently, is both blue and not
blue.) Since rightness is a property of acts, it follows that no act is both
right and not right. Since we have defined “wrong” as “not right,” it
follows that no act is both right and wrong.
When we put these conclusions together, we get this: Every act
is either right or wrong, and no act is both right and wrong. With
respect to acts, therefore, “right” and “wrong” are jointly exhaustive
and mutually exclusive.
Things are different with respect to the terms “good” and “bad.”
Unlike “right” and “wrong,” these terms do not exhaust the
possibilities, for we sometimes say that a thing (such as a bowl of soup)
is neither good nor bad but indifferent. What follows from the Law of
Excluded Middle is not that every object is either good or bad, but that
every object is either good or not good. What follows from the Law of
Noncontradiction is not that no object is both good and bad (though
that is true) but that no object is both good and not good.
What this shows is that there is a logical difference between
“right” and “wrong” on the one hand and “good” and “bad” on the other.
Every act is either right or wrong, but it’s not the case that every object
is either good or bad. (There may be an object, such as the
aforementioned bowl of soup, that is neither good nor bad but
indifferent.) The reason for this logical difference is that we defined
“wrong” as “not right,” but we did not define “bad” as “not good.” The
category of the “not good” includes both “bad” and “indifferent,” as
follows:
Objects
Good
1
Not Good
Bad
2
Not Bad
3
Category 1 is the category of the good. Category 2 is the category of
3
the bad. Category 3 is the category of the indifferent (i.e., neither good
nor bad). With respect to acts, however, there is a different taxonomy:
Acts
Right
1
Not Right
2
Category 1 is the category of the right. Category 2 is the category of
the wrong. There is no such thing as an indifferent act, i.e., an act that
is neither right nor wrong. Different normative ethical theories
provide different accounts of what it is that makes right acts right and
wrong acts wrong. We can think of these theories as sorting devices,
for each of them sorts acts into two mutually exclusive and jointly
exhaustive categories, namely, “right” and “wrong.”
What Follows is for Advanced Students
Consider the following square of opposition:
x is obligatory
(not-x is impermissible)
Px
x is forbidden
(x is impermissible)
Px
x is permissible
(x is not forbidden)
Px
not-x is permissible
(x is not obligatory)
Px
As on the Aristotelian square of opposition for categorical logic, the
relations of contrariety, subcontrariety, contradictoriness, and
subalternation obtain:
•
The propositional forms at the top of the square are
contraries, which means they can’t both be true but can both
be false. (No act is both obligatory and forbidden, but an act
can be neither obligatory nor forbidden.)
4
•
•
•
•
The propositional forms at the bottom of the square are
subcontraries, which means they can’t both be false but can
both be true. (No act is both forbidden and obligatory, but an
act can be neither forbidden nor obligatory.)
The propositional forms that are diagonal to one another are
contradictories, which means they can’t both be true and
can’t both be false. (No act is both obligatory and not
obligatory; no act is both forbidden and not forbidden.)
The propositional form in the upper left is the superaltern of
the propositional form in the lower left, which means that the
first propositional form logically implies the second
propositional form, but the second propositional form does not
logically imply the first propositional form. (Obligatoriness
logically implies permissibility, but permissibility does not
logically imply obligatoriness; in other words, an act can’t be
obligatory without [also] being permissible, but an act can be
permissible without being obligatory.)
The propositional form in the upper right is the superaltern
of the propositional form in the lower right, which means that
the first propositional form logically implies the second
propositional form, but the second propositional form does not
logically imply the first propositional form. (Impermissibility
logically implies lack of obligatoriness, but lack of
obligatoriness does not logically imply impermissibility; in
other words, an act can’t be both impermissible and obligatory,
but an act can be both non-obligatory and permissible.)
Here are the immediate inferences that are represented on the square
of opposition:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Suppose x is obligatory (upper left). Then (1) x is not
forbidden; (2) x is permissible; and (3) not-x is impermissible.
Suppose x is forbidden (upper right). Then (1) x is not
obligatory; (2) not-x is permissible; and (3) x is impermissible.
Suppose x is permissible (lower left). Then x is not
forbidden.
Suppose not-x is permissible (lower right). Then x is not
obligatory.
Suppose x is not obligatory (lower right). Then not-x is
permissible.
Suppose x is not forbidden (lower left). Then x is
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•
•
permissible.
Suppose x is impermissible (upper right). Then (1) not-x
is permissible; (2) x is not obligatory; and (3) x is forbidden.
Suppose not-x is impermissible (upper left). Then (1) x is
permissible; (2) x is not forbidden; and (3) x is obligatory.
Here is a chart that shows how various terms are defined:
Discretionary
Obligatory
Forbidden
Dilemmatic
Is x permissible?
Yes
Yes
No
No
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Is not-x permissible?
Yes
No
Yes
No